Usually when the word “grace” is employed in a basketball setting, it involves the description of a player such as Ohio State’s William Buford moving nimbly across the floor. San Francisco coach Rex Walters is a different kind of graceful, though.

His insistence that he called the timeout the Dons did not have available, leading to a technical foul that sealed their loss to Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Tournament semifinals, was among the most admirable public positions we will see a coach adopt.

It was obvious to anyone with vision that the timeout had been requested by a bench player — let’s call him “Don” — leaping to his feet and pressing his hands together in the customary “T” gesture. It's also possible San Francisco guard Rashad Green, who made the steal with the team down three points and was seated on the floor as he gathered it, asked for a timeout.

Walters maintained he had been granted the timeout that drew a technical foul, and dared those in the media to call him a liar.

That would not be appropriate. We all have recent experience with lying coaches, and this is not the same.

This entire episode, however, underscores the desirability of a change to college timeout rules, away from the current “anybody-at-any-point” allowance for time to be called.

American basketball essentially is alone in the absurdity of allowing time to be stopped while play is live. Football, hockey, soccer and baseball do not permit this, for reasons that appear to escape American basketball officials.

Simply, players should not have the power to extricate themselves from difficult circumstances merely by demanding stoppage of play. They got themselves into trouble — they should get themselves out.

College basketball compounds that farce by allowing timeout to be called from the bench during live play, which leads to absurdity like we saw last season between Syracuse and Connecticut, when a promising development on a crucial play for the Huskies was negated by a timeout granted (allegedly) to the Syracuse bench.

FIBA rules are far superior to American basketball rules in this regard. Perhaps owing to the soccer tradition of continuous play, those from other countries recognize an essential part of athletic competition is forcing athletes to cope with challenging circumstances. As I’ve written many times, Tom Brady is not permitted the luxury of stopping play when Bart Scott is about to sack him. Brady either throws the ball away or the Patriots lose yards.

The FIBA rule that allows timeout to be called only by the coach, and only when there is a stoppage, might not have led to a change in the USF-Gonzaga result. It would have removed the stigma from a young man who merely was engaged with his team and passionate about the result.

It is hard to imagine it has been two decades since Chris Webber became infamous for timeout call and NCAA basketball still has not fixed this. Don will pay for that intransigence.